


Premonition

by draculard



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Blood and Injury, Car Accidents, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 16:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: In 1985, Gus dreams he's in a car wreck.





	Premonition

In 1985, Gus dreams he’s in a car wreck. He loses control of the vehicle — unlike him — and sees a truck heading for him, and then his sight is momentarily blacked out in a burst of heat, light, and explosive, deafening noise. Suddenly he stands outside the wreckage, looking down at the body of the boy who just a moment ago was next to him in the passenger’s side.

Maximino lies on his stomach in a mess of yellow grass and gravel. He props himself on his elbows; he looks at Gus with dark, blown eyes. A piece of twisted metal is embedded in his nose.

 _It’s fine,_ Gus thinks, but he knows it’s not. _It’s not a serious wound. He’ll be fine._

And then Maximino sneezes, head jerking down, and the piece of shrapnel rips its way out of him. It takes the entire lower half of his face with it — it takes Maximino’s jaw, it takes his lips, it leaves only a red, wet hole and a fragmented top row of teeth.

Blood gushes from the wound, more blood than Gus could have imagined. Maximino makes eye contact with Gus; he never looks away. It seems almost like he's glaring. Accusing. Blaming. With the lower half of his face missing, he gags and retches and Gus watches as a thin stream of white-ish bile, tinged pink from blood, trickles down into the gore on the ground.

That’s when he wakes — not jerking upright, not sweating, not gasping for air. Gus opens his eyes as calmly as though he were wakened by birdsong, and not by the worst nightmare he’s ever had in his life. He stares up at the ceiling; his body is cold and small and distant from him, like it’s no more than a cool, smooth stone his spirit is attached to.

He feels nauseated. As ever after a nightmare, Gus finds himself unwilling to move — not even a little, not even a twitch — until he’s fully tucked the dream away. He pictures himself folding it up into a little square and hiding it in a little compartment deep inside his brain.

Beside him, Maximino sleeps soundly, wearing nothing but his boxers. His skin is hot to the touch; Gus leans into him instinctively — not wrapping his arms around him, not cuddling. Nothing so personal. Only pressing against him for heat. Maximino leans into his touch, lets out the softest moan. For a moment, it seems as though he’ll come awake, and Gus watches him with blank eyes, waiting for it, planning what he’ll say.

He remembers Maximino’s lips against his before they went to bed; soft and almost oppressively warm, and before this memory can have any sort of positive effect, it gives way to the taste of blood — surely imagined — and the smell of vomit and the memory of an explosion, of pressure against Gus’s ears, of a blast of pain that turns the entire right side of his face numb.

He hadn’t thought much of his own pain in the dream. He’s sure there was something there — a physical wound, an important detail — but it’s already drifted away, leaving nothing behind but the image of Maximino’s ruined face. It’s not like Gus to forget a detail. He wishes he could remember; at the same time, he can’t help but view it as unimportant, extraneous.

Maximino shifts beside him and pulls Gus into his arms, warm and strong and comforting even in his sleep. The smells of the dream fade away; the images dissolve, and all he has to do is keep his eyes open and he can see that Maximino is fine. His face is whole and handsome and healthy and young — unharmed, untouched by blood.

The nausea doesn’t pass.


End file.
